Community Board 8 is holding its Land Use Committee meeting at Kingsbridge Heights Community Center this Wednesday, December 9th, at 7:30 p.m. so that Kingsbridge Heights residents can HEAR about and TALK about the proposed Urban Pathways development at 3469 Cannon Place.

Urban Pathways has already been to a CB #8 meeting, and came out to meet a small group of people at the site last week, and what follows here are my notes from that conversation. I’ll post other info here as I get it.

The building will be 90 apartments. 60% will be supportive housing for people diagnosed with mental illness, with a preference for veterans. Each resident will have their own studio apartment with their own bathroom and cooking facilities (approx 300 square feet). Supportive housing means that there will be staff on-site working with the residents (social workers, nurses, etc.). The building will also have 24-hour security. The intention, according to Urban Pathways Executive Director Fred Schack, is that each resident would live in the building for 3-4 years, in which time they would be working on a plan to ready themselves to live more independently elsewhere, in an apartment of their own.

40% will be permanent apartments, affordably priced (the example I was given was $35,000 for a family of 2-3, I think). Neighborhood residents and possibly people who work in the neighborhood but don’t live here would be given preference here (there would not be, as there are for many such developments, a lottery to choose the tenants).

There will be some parking (how much?)

The front of the building will be on Cannon Place, but it will be set back 35’ from the property line, to create a front yard, and to create space for cars to stop in front of the building without blocking Cannon Place. They have not designed the building yet, as they wanted to hear from the Community Board and the community first (I believe that an expansion of parking and the setback from Cannon are both responses to things they’ve heard so far).

Rather than blast through the rock on Ft Independence, which would be expensive and NOISY, they will build on top of it. I suggested that they consider having an exit from their building onto Fort Independence, but given that the lower floor of the building will be so far above Ft. Indy, I’m not sure that will work out.

We should ask whether their garbage will be picked up by Sanitation or whether they will have commercial trash collection (Sanitation would be in the daytime while most commercial trash firms work at night).

I have a friend who works for the Supportive Housing Network and knows all the non-profits that do supportive housing. He tells me Urban Pathways has a good reputation. Fred Schack, the Executive Director, invited us to go visit the building they have operated in Hell’s Kitchen for 13 years. I believe the Vice President of the Cannon Heights co-op is setting that up. Urban Pathways website is http://www.urbanpathways.org, and information about Ivan Shapiro House is at http://www.urbanpathways.org/hous_is.asp.

14 responses to “Urban Pathways Devt at 3469 Cannon Place”

Thanks so much for all this information. It is very helpful, and is so important for the neighborhood to be aware of this type of development.
So, who wrote this entry? Want to thank you personally.
Terry

AS WITH EVERY DEVELOPMENT WITHIN AN ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY, THERE ARE PROS FOR DEVELOPMENT AND THERE ARE CONS AGAINST DEVELOPMENT.. WHY IS IT THAT CANNON HEIGHTS WAS NEVER ABLE TO DEVELOP AND BUILD ON THEIR ADJACENT PROPERTY ???? BUT NOW THEY WANT TO COME IN AND BASICALLY BUILD A HOMELESS SHELTER IN THE MIDDLE OF A MIDDLE INCOME WORKING CLASS COMMUNITY????? DON’T WE ALREADY HAVE SCATTER SITE HOUSING ON FT. INDEPENDENCE?????APPARENTLY THIS DEVELOPMENT IS BASED IN MANHATTAN, WHY DON’T THEY BUILD IN MANHATTAN???? WHY HERE????? AS FAR AS REPUTATIONS GO..KHRRC USED TO HAVE A STELLAR REPUTATION..AND YOU SEE HOW THAT WENT….THERE ARE MANY ISSUES THAT HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED….#1 IS PARKING…IN AN ALREADY OVERWHELMED COMMUNITY, THE LACK OF PARKING IS A VERY SERIOUS ISSUE.THERE MUST BE PARKING FOR THE STAFF AND FOR THE RESIDENTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT..#2 THERE MUST BE SOME FORM OF INGRESS AND EGRESS FROM THE FORT INDEPENDENCE SIDE OF THIS DEVELOPMENT..EVERY LARGE BUILDING IN THE AREA HAS TWO MEANS OF ENTERING OR EXITING THE BUILDING..#3 THE ASTHETICS OF THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT ARE THEY GOING TO MAINTAIN THE SURROUNDING AREA????? #4 SECURITY..WITHIN THE DEVELOPMENT AND OUTSIDE OF THE DEVELOPMENT IN THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY…..AND IS IT 24/7 ???? #5 IS IT TRULY A TRANSITIONAL FACILITY OR IS IT A TRANSIENT FACILITY??? #6 HOW IS THIS GOING TO BE BENEFICIAL TO THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE???? THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE MANY ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED BEFORE THIS DEVELOPMENT BECOMES A REALITY…TO BE CONTINUED..

I thought the post had my name on it!! It’s Margaret Groarke, of Giles Place.

Former FIPNA President asks a lot of good questions, which we should be sure to have answered Wednesday night. Here’s a few bits of info I’ve already heard: 40% of the residents would be regular long-term tenants, not clients of the supportive services — just people who have rented apts. The 60% of the building that would be the homeless people with a mental illness diagnosis would live there for, we were told, about 3-4 years, and would be working on a plan to live more independently elsewhere. (if you see their video, there’s a woman who lived in Ivan Shapiro house and then moved to Queens.) So its not a homeless shelter, but a transitional facility. 24/7 security. PARKING: they originally weren’t going to include any, because 60% of their tenants won’t have cars. CB 8 got them to consider that their staff would have some cars, and that some of their tenants (40% of building) would. We also told them that if they built extra parking, they’d have a waiting list to rent it. So we need to talk to them more about what parking they should have. I also think an entrance/exit on Ft. Independence would be a good idea for a lot of reasons.

Don’t they realize that other developers have tried and failed to build “On Top” of the rock that is there! The subterranean rock is not stable enough to build on without some excavation.

Also a setback of 35′ from Cannon Place, is that even possible given the narrowness of the lot? I can’t believe it would even be legal to build a facility without an entrance on both sides.

It should be interesting to see what the developers have to say at the meeting.

This neighborhood and surrounding areas are already saturated with these types of facilities, do we really need another? The smaller one that has been built on Cannon & Orloff still remains vacant.

I hate to be the one that screams “Not In My Backyard” but it is about time someone speaks up and says “Enough is Enough” already! This neighborhood has become so over developed with these bigger developments and vacant lots of the big dreams these developers had for what? How many more construction sites are we going to have with boarded up fences sitting idle while the developers decide what they are going to do, or worse walk away because they could not do what they wanted to do in the first place.

I heard you speak December 9 at the Community Board meeting, and I your comments of wanting to understand more about this development before attacking it.

I agree that a well-run building on the site could enhance the street and the experience of walking by it at night. However what our neighborhood ideally needs is permanent neighbors who share our concerns and goals for our community: people who are invested in making our area better.

The New York University study says that supportive housing may have a positive effect on real estate values if it is sensitively incorporated into the community. Applying this to Urban Pathways, their project would necessarily need to include features for neighborhood enhancement: retail services (a cafe, bookstore, grocery); parking; even a small public esplanade or park to take advantage of the splendid views.

If the Urban Pathways project doesn’t enhance the neighborhood in some important way, prospective buyers may be frightened away from investing and living here.

I live on Cannon Place, and was at the meeting last night. It was amazing to see the community come together like that.

I support your message that we “not rush to judgment” (I personally did not oppose the idea of supportive housing on that site, though it’s directly across the street from the home where I am raising my children; it is the SIZE of the project that frightens me). However I felt that your words undermined the community’s message to Urban Pathways– the message that we DO NOT WANT THIS HERE AND WE WILL FIGHT IT.

Frankly I am SHOCKED that you appear to be positioning yourself in support of this project.

Is the Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association endorsing this project?

I would just like to state for the record that FIPNA has not yet taken a position on the Urban Pathways proposal. We feel that there is much more information about this project that we need to know. Unfortunately, while we had another member of FIPNA’s leadership at the Dec 9th meeting, she was not able to speak (due to the large crowd). She was the one who distributed the flyers to all the neighbors up and down Cannon Place.

As you know, we are all volunteers and live in the area. You may be able to notice from our web site, that there are many issues that concern our organization. More importantly, it is critical that we continue to promote a fair exchange of ideas on the web. Your contribution is a welcomed addition.

We have many questions concerning this project, which is why we expect people to continue to attend meetings and/or comment on our blog.

We need to know all the details of the financing concerning this project, such as who is providing the money to purchase the property and from whom, how much money is being provided to build it, is it a set amount, what will happen if more money is needed for construction, why does this need to be a mixed use facility, and will Urban Pathways always be responsible for running this facility. We feel that the more you know about who is involved in a project like this, the better. We also have problems with the scale of the project, which will loom over a very small street, cutting off both light and air, as well as the saturation issues concerning clustering three low income housing sites and/or two mental health facilities within a one to two block radius, which needs to be addressed.

In the end the question isn’t whether the Urban Pathways organization is good or bad, but whether this site is appropriate for this project.

Phil has already addressed this very well, but I wanted to add that I didn’t speak on behalf of FIPNA at the meeting, but offered our website as a place to share info about the proposal and a place to discuss it. I’m glad that’s beginning to happen.